Mother of Arizona shooting victim visits Newtown

Jan. 8, 2013
|

Roxanna Green, left, whose daughter was killed in the 2011 Tucson-area shooting, and Chris Foye, whose son was killed by a stray bullet in Harlem in 2009, take part in a December 17 news conference in New York that put a spotlight on gun violence. / John Moore, Getty Images

by By Karina Bland, The Arizona Republic

by By Karina Bland, The Arizona Republic

When Roxanna Green's car crossed into Newtown, Conn., a pretty little town of about 27,000, she felt a too-familiar fear crawl up her back and over the top of her head. She tried to rub away the goose bumps on her upper arms.

It was Monday, Dec. 17. Green could feel grief hanging in the air of the town where, three days before, a gunman had shot and killed 27 people, including 20 first-graders in their schoolrooms.

"It was just so heartbreaking. It was really, really sad," she said.

From the car window, she could look down quiet streets where yellow ribbons had been tied to lamp posts and stop signs in honor of those killed.

There were too many yellow ribbons.

"Not that it should happen anywhere, no matter what kind of town, but this place was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. A sleepy, charming town," Green said.

But she knows it can happen in a place like Newtown, that it can happen anywhere, because it happened just 3 miles from her home in Tucson two years ago Tuesday.

And because it was Green's 9-year-old daughter, Christina-Taylor, who was among those shot and killed.

"Just going there, it brought back the whole thing," she said. Her terror at losing a child felt multiplied by 20.

Green made the drive from New York, where earlier that day she had appeared at a press conference hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg highlighting the efforts of the group "Mayors Against Illegal Guns," which is advocating a national plan to prevent gun violence.

Like the grieving parents in Newtown, Green had sent her child off one morning to what should have been a safe place: a grocery store parking lot on a sunny Saturday.

A friend and neighbor had taken the girl to meet a real-life congresswoman; Green expected her daughter back in plenty of time for dinner.

Instead, Christina-Taylor was the only child among the six people killed and 13 wounded on Jan. 8, 2011 when a gunman attempted to assassinate U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and then fired into the scattering crowd.

That shooter, Jared Loughner, diagnosed by a court-appointed forensic psychologist as paranoid schizophrenic, pleaded guilty and as part of a plea agreement will spend the rest of his life in federal custody.

Staying out of it -- until now

In the months after their daughter was killed, Roxanna and John Green stayed out of the debates over gun control and mental health care.

"At the beginning, when I could barely tie my shoes, I wanted my daughter to be remembered in a positive way, by building playgrounds and buying books and computers for schools," Green says. "To me, that was happy, and that was immediate, especially for her friends and classmates."

The family started the Christina-Taylor Green Memorial Foundation to do good deeds in the little girl's name. (Last month, a toy drive brought in more than 10,000 toys and 224 bikes for needy kids.) Green also wrote a book called "As Good As She Imagined," and a portion of the proceeds go to the foundation.

But the Greens now find themselves unable to be silent. Not anymore. Not after the July shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead and 58 wounded. Not after the August shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., where six people were killed and another four wounded.

Green was at home when she heard the news about the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She stood in front of the television and watched in disbelief.

"I just wanted to throw up. I couldn't even move," Green said.

And then she wanted to go to Newtown.

"As soon as I heard the news, I felt like I should be there," she said.

As the day went on, the Greens' phones filled with voice messages from people who heard the news and called to say they were thinking of them, and of Christina-Taylor.

Her son Dallas, who's 13 now, heard about the shootings at school, but John Green only learned the news when he got home from work. Roxanna Green warned him not to turn on the television, but he immediately did, and blanched.

"You can't go," John told her, not so close to Christmas, not with the toy drive the next day, and a family trip coming up. "We'll pray for them."

But the next day she got a call inviting her to New York for the mayor's press conference two days later.

"It would be a lot easier for me to sit here in my sweats and pack and go to Christmas parties. Sure, it would have been easier to stay here," she said.

Easier because even when you are the parents of a little girl who was murdered by a disturbed young man with a high-capacity semiautomatic gun, if you speak out for any kind of gun regulation, you become a target.

People have criticized the Greens' stance. Some have even called them offensive names.

"I don't mind taking it, even if the comments are disrespectful. I'm out there on my soapbox," Roxanna Green said. "It's that important to me at this point."

A sensible plan

At the press conference, Green, who before her daughter was killed did little more than join the PTA to draw attention to herself, stood in the front row and faced reporters from around the globe. She was surrounded by others who have lost loved ones.

A 13-year-old boy playing basketball in Harlem, killed by a stray bullet in 2009. In 2007, 32 students and professors shot and killed at Virginia Tech. A teenage boy murdered at Columbine High School in 1999, where 13 people were killed.

"It just makes me so mad," Green said. "Doing nothing is not an option. What kind of country do we want to live in?"

Green believes there is plenty of middle ground between moderate gun regulation and any compromise of the Second Amendment.

"It's not 'all or nothing'. We don't want to take people's guns away," she said, adding that it would be hypocritical.

John Green is a longtime hunter, raised in a hunting family. When the Greens lived in Pennsylvania, he hunted deer with his brothers annually. In Arizona, he takes Dallas bird hunting, along with friends, a few times a year. The group usually bags a bird or two each trip. The guys cook them in a slow-cooker.

"It's good," Dallas called out. "It has to have a lot of barbecue sauce."

In America, Green points out, people must pass a test to get a driver's license, register their vehicles, pass emissions tests, and re-register them every year.

People even have to register their dogs.

"To buy Sudafed at Walmart, you have to jump through more hoops than to buy a gun," she said.

She wants the gun laws currently on the books to be enforced, and military-style assault weapons banned. She wants background checks on people who buy weapons at gun shows or on the Internet.

"All we're asking for is a discussion, a sensible plan," Green said. And it needs to be now, while the nation still is reeling from Newtown.

"Are you not moved or touched or saddened by what happened on Dec. 14? It will stay with me for the rest of my life," she said.

Feeling Newtown's pain

Two years after Christina-Taylor was shot and killed, Green has mostly stopped saying that she "lost" her daughter.

"I didn't lose my daughter. She was murdered. She was robbed from our family. That's different.

"I can't say I lost her. I didn't lose her at the mall. She didn't run away," Green said. And then repeated, more softly this time: "She was murdered."

"A lot of people don't want to use that word because it's ugly," she said. "It is ugly, but if you don't use it, then we're never going to change anything.

"This has to stop."

That was the same thought that came into her mind on Dec. 17 on that drive to Newtown. She was on the way to do an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper when she saw all the yellow ribbons. Too many yellow ribbons, too many victims.

This has to stop.

And again when she met the extended family of some of the Newtown victims â?? aunts and uncles of the children, adult children of the teachers â?? friends, and the first police and paramedics on the scene.

"You can tell by looking at them that they have been through something so traumatic. It was like they were all in a coma," Green said. "You just look into their faces, and it is like a concrete wall."

This has to stop.

She also knew what parents who lost children in Newtown would face in the holiday weeks ahead. That inside these picture-postcard houses, presents already were wrapped and hidden; the Barbies and Easy Bake Ovens, the Star Wars action figures and Snap Circuits sets.

When the Greens had returned home from the hospital after saying goodbye to Christina-Taylor, they also were met with cheerful Christmas decorations, as well as presents opened but barely played with. That Christmas, Christina-Taylor had gotten the guitar she'd always wanted.

"I'm not saying it wouldn't be any worse on, say, March 1, but this is what they are going to remember forever about Christmas," Green said. She sighed.

"I just felt their pain all over again. I felt so bad and helpless," she said.

She cried in the car for the hourlong ride back to New York.

Green is planning a return trip to Newtown on Jan. 14. She knows that she is inescapably qualified to understand, and she wants to help.

Green tried grief counseling, and though some people find solace and answers there, she found that other mothers who had lost children helped her the most.

That's why she is going back: "What if there are moms out here like me?"

When Green returns, she will take an angel ornament, either silver or copper, for each family.